Hikari On The Subject

Tomb Raider: Legend Review

In 1996, a game called Tomb Raider was released on PS One, and with it, the marketing phenomenon known as Lara Croft was born. Despite steadily dropping in quality over the years, Tomb Raider has continued to remain a household name among gamers, and the licence has grown into advertiser's wet dream. However, with the release of the abysmal disappointment Angel of Darkness, many long time fans jumped ship, and said "please, no more." Now in her 8th outing, Lara digs her way out of the gaming shadows, and back into the spotlight. Does Tomb Raider: Legend continue the legacy of despairingly sub-par titles, or has the once beloved Ms. Croft again stood tall to redeem herself in the eyes of us all?

Digging up the Past

The story of Tomb Raider: Legend one of it's biggest selling points. This time out, Lara's journey is more of a personal one, that will dig more into her history and origins. As you play through the game, you'll catch a glimpse at why Lara became a Tomb Raider, uncover secrets from Lara's past, reopen old wounds, and make new enemies out of friends, all leading up to an ending that will open the door for many more Tomb Raider games to come.

As the story progresses, Lara's character becomes more fleshed out and defined, transforming her from simply a hot chick with a large polygonal chest and a pair of cool looking pistols, into well rounded, character worthy of your emotional attachment.

The game's story is pushed along with the help of cut-scenes running off the game engine, and an mid-game dialog exchanges between Lara and other characters; usually her long-distance side kicks, Zip and Alister. This can range between useful and informative, story related, or just idle chatter; either way, its often fun to listen to an entertaining. The method of in-game dialog over cut-scene after cut-scene, may remind some of the recent Prince of Persia titles, where the prince will after mutter to himself or a companion as he goes along.

This method of information deliver helps to keep the game flowing at a nice brisk pace, while at the same time, providing useful hints at times without slowing the game down for a cut-scene. Unlike some games out nowadays, the cut-scenes are used for little piece of minutia that comes along. Instead, they're used for what they should be; to highlight an event, or move the story at critical points.

Seeing (and hearing) Is Believing

The graphics in Tomb Raider: Legend are, in a word: Beautiful. While it may not stack up to the quality of games like Ghost Recon and such, it cares its own unique wonderful, that would still leave your eyes popping and your jaw dropping. The lighting effects gorgeous and account for just about everything; Lara's shadow will be cast and effected by multiple light sources, creating some of the most realistic light I've ever seen. Turn her flash light and aim her guns while standing near a wall and you'll actually see the shadow of her arms cast onto the wall.

Water effects, are equally impressive. The effects used for rippling pools, roaring waterfalls, and babbling streams are gripping enough to have you just stop and stare. What's really nice though, is that the water effects are simply limited the environment. Take Lara for a swim, and she'll leave a nice trail of bubbles and foam in her wake. Send her back on land, and she'll appear soaked, complete with water logged darkening of her clothes, a sheen to her skin, and trickles of water running down her face, all of which gradually as she begins to dry.

Similarly, if you begin using her rolling or sliding techniques, her clothing and skin will collect bits of dust and dirt, until she's covered head to toe in grime. Wanna clear her off? Take her for another swim.

Environmental interactivity is in a healthy supply with explosive barrels, than can be safely kicked near vehicles or other barrels to set off even larger displays of boomage. In one area, a desert town in Peru, try letting off a few rounds on some water barrels for a nice to display of spraying goodness.

The character models in the game, while not as impressive as the renderings of Lara in the ads, are still quite nice, though at times...odd. Lara herself is quite lovely, and expressive; facial animations run the gamut, and her physical appearance pretty much shows her inventory, as most of her items such her grenades, grappling hook, binoculars, and guns will appear on her body.

Still, other characters have some odd quirks to them, such as her butler, Winston, who's appearance and mouth movements can, at times, evoke visions of a ventriloquist's dummy. One of Lara's main adversaries, Rutland, has a weird smirk, and pucker to his lips at times, almost like he's waiting for a kiss (and he doesn't even offer to buy her dinner). All things considered however, the game is still quite attractive and is well above average grade.

The sound design in Tomb Raider: Legend, is nice as well, serving up a nice soundtrack, with a meaty dose of well acted vocal dialog. The sound effects, from the ambient effects like trickling water, to the player activated destruction of objects, all have an ear tickling pleasantness to them.

Gun effects have a nice and meaty sound to them, and while lacking some of the punch of games like Ghost Recon and Call of Duty, they still have a satisfying kick.

A Phoenix From The Ashes

Developed by Crystal Dynamics, best known for the Legacy of Kain series, Tomb Raider: Legend has been completely redesigned from the ground up. Where the old games had you stuck to almost Resident Evil style tank-like controls, you now have full flexible freedom to control the nimble Ms. Croft however you like. She runs, jumps, ledge crawls, rope swings, and more with a grace and flare never before. Repeatedly tapping the jump button as you run, set her into a fun and nice to look at series of flips and jumps, that give you a nice burst of speed when getting past certain puzzles and evading enemies.

Tapping the Y button as she climbs, swims, or scoots across ledges and you'll bring her speed up, keeping the game from dragging, and keeping things moving at nice a pace. And you'll want to keep moving as the level design can be as deadly as it is beautiful. Traps are plenty and later in the game, you have to constantly keep moving forward as pathways behind you crumble and drop, requiring good reflexes and even better timing.

Combat in the game is a blast. Putting Lara's acrobatics to work here is fun and nesscery While the enemy AI units aren't the brightest bulbs in the box; their usually high numbers which will force you into making use of Lara's acrobatics will usually be enough to keep you entertained. Most enemies, once dispatched, are an excellent source of ammo for your secondary gun and heath packs.

Within 2 of the levels are lengthy motorcycle segments where Lara must gun down enemies at high speed, while all the time avoid obsticles and pulling off a few sweet moves. While they don't add too much to the game, experience, they don't hurt either, and would've been nice if there were more, or at least a mode where you could spend as much time on the bikes as long as you wanted.

The biggest gripes with combat start of with the fact that the grenade tossing system seems a bit out of whack, as grenades often seem to far too often fall short of their target, or worst bounce back at you. Though you can make it through most of the game without lobbing a single grenade, it would've been nice to have more precise, less pinball-like grenades in the game.

The second biggest gripe comes in the form of the combat with the animal AI characters. They're dumb as a sack of brick. They run up, attack you and stop, giving you ample time to load them full of shots before going another offensive. While this is a somewhat okay balance considering a Jaguar claw seems to be mightier than the sting of a bullet, I would have preferred with weaker animals with more aggression than guard dogs who attack only to stop and look like they're trying to make friends with you.

The game's controls for inventory related matters are a thing of beauty, making everything extremely easy to access. Items such as your health packs, weapons, flash light and binoculars are mapped all mapped to your D-pad. The item you'll come to use the most aside from you pistols or SMGs are your binoculars.

By pressing the Y button you can switch from simple zoom in-zoom out to a scanning mode that will allow you to find critical points in the environment. Items that you can move, structures than can be toppled (which helps to save time and ammo when wiping out enemies), and mechanisms that can be activated, and so forth, almost eliminating much of the "I have this giant ball of ancientness, now what the hell do I do with it?" stresses. The game gives you all the tools you need to find the pieces to the puzzle, but its still up to you to figure out how to fit them all together.

Puzzles in the game are in great supply and take a decent amount of effort to complete. While most of them aren't brain crushingly hard, they may hang you up for some time. Thankfully, the solutions to the puzzles are often easy to figure out once you figure out how all the parts work together, and there's little to no back tracking. Fans of the fading Adventure genre will appreciate the logic involved, and how many of the puzzles weave into the environment.

Boss fights fill five of the eight stages in the game, and each of them are fun and refreshing. Some have an old school feel to them, which involve being in the right place at the right time to attack, others are a puzzle in and of themselves, all are fast, furious, and intense.

Taking a page from games such as Resident 4 and Shenmu, even Tomb Raider's cut-scenes keep you on your toes, often forcing you to keep up with queued button presses in order to keep Lara alive and moving. Not moving fast enough will result in the buxom adventurer becoming a dead adventurer.

Premature Aging

Speaking of fast, the game's overall greatest strength is also it's biggest detriment; while the game moves along at a great speed is a good thing, the fact that it is so very short is not. While you do have a time trial mode that lets you play through the game again while racing the clock, the ability to explore Croft Manor, and plenty of costumes and secrets to unlock, you cannot escape the fact that the game is over far too quickly.

What rubs salt in the wound even more is the story's cliffhanger ending, that screams sequel. Considering how short it is, you get the feeling that they could have gone ahead and just finished the story out farther, at least to a point, in order to keep the game from feeling so brief. However, for those of you who lack the time, will, or patience to complete a 40 hour game and enjoy your games in short bursts, I doubt you'll have much problem with.

Despite a cry for a meatier sequel, an improved grenade mechanic, and smarter, more agressive critter AI, Tomb Raider: Legend gains a high recommendation. If you're worried about the length, rent it and spend the weekend with Lara. If you don't care how short it is and like to collect and unlock, buy it and enjoy.

Bottom_Line:
Graphics: 8 Clean looking interface Beautiful, high quality environments, weird looking Character Models in some places.
Sound: 8 A sonic delight, with great music, solid sound effects and good voice acting.
Gameplay: 8 Fun, fast pace, and you almost always feel the need and ability to stay on the move, but far too short.
Fun: 9 A great ride while it lasts, with plenty of unlockables to go back for.
Overall: 8 (Awesome; looking forward to the sequel)

posted by Teksuo Hikari @ 9:11 PM